Committee Decides Sen. Wallin Should Also Pay Back Additional $17,000

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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A group of senators inspecting the largely controversial travel expenses of Sen. Pamela Wallin has completed its review on Wednesday, disclosing that it has reached the decision that the Saskatchewan senator must repay a total of $139,000 in exchange for wrongly acquired travel expenses. It was decided by the Senate subcommittee that Wallin must reimburse an additional $17,621.98 out of $20,978 in expenses that were flagged by an independent audit which conclude last week.

The external audit conducted by Deloitte took into account Wallin’s travel expenses from January 2009 to September 2012 and enlisted expense claims of more than $120,000 that it said needed to be repaid. The Senate’s internal economy committee has already recommended Wallin to repay that amount, while acknowledging that she has already repaid $38,000 before the controversy. It was disclosed by the auditors that a $20,978 in claims was “subject to interpretation,” because their majority were mostly from “networking events.”

It was decided by the internal economy committee chair Sen. Gerald Comeau that these flagged expense claims will be reviewed individually. Consequently, in a statement issued on Wednesday, the three-senator internal economy steering committee determined that Wallin must reimburse $17,621.98 of that money, which now totals the repayable amount up to $138,969. The three-senator steering committee consists of Comeau, fellow Conservative Sen. Carolyn Stewart Olsen, and Liberal Sen. George Furey. Wallin has at one point labeled audit process “fundamentally flawed” and unfair, alleging that Deloitte retroactively applied rules. However, she also agreed to repay any money the Senate asked her to repay.